


i couldn't tell you how the house burned down

by little_alien_duck, snaredrum



Series: harder better faster stronger [2]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Found Family, implied violet snicket, isadora IS there she just doesn't say anything rip, netflix canon compliant, not much but it is DEFINITELY something we will be writing much more about later, tea as bitter as wormwood and sharp as a double edged sword is for squares, we forgot to explain this in text but quigley is off mapmaking, weird uncle lemony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 12:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_alien_duck/pseuds/little_alien_duck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaredrum/pseuds/snaredrum
Summary: Beatrice meets her uncle. She wants him to be a part of her family, and he'd like that too, but no one's really sure how to go about that.





	i couldn't tell you how the house burned down

**Author's Note:**

> and we're back! this is the official second installment of harder better faster stronger! this was a real piece of work to write, so we apologize for how short it is. this takes place during and after the scene in the end where beatrice talks to lemony, so that puts it about seven years after the first fic in the series.  
> also we should probably start including the songs we're referencing - the title is from transatlantique by beirut, which, if i may be so bold, is a lemony song.

“And that’s the story,” Beatrice said simply. In front of her on the table sat two nearly empty root beer floats. Behind them, sitting across from her, was her uncle, Lemony Snicket.

“And where are you living now? Are you all safe?” Lemony asked. The entire time they’d been talking, Beatrice hadn’t heard any distinct emotion in his voice. Now it sounded unmistakably concerned. 

“Who’s asking?” she responded without thinking, before shaking her head. “I apologize – a force of habit.”

She told him about the house with the Baudelaires and the Quagmires, about how they came and went at random as they worked on different projects and studied different things. She told him how they all looked after her, taught her about inventing things and the best places to buy books and how to win at a game of poker against anyone. She told him about how her childhood was safe and happy because her guardians made sure she had enough knowledge about the world to be able to navigate it, instead of having to figure it out on her own, like they had to. 

“That sounds nice,” Lemony said, his voice soft. 

Beatrice’s eyes widened, an idea forming in her brain. 

“Do you want to come to the house, Uncle Lemony?” she asked. 

He sat up with surprise, before holding his hands up, palms forward, in a placating gesture. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly –”

“Please,” Beatrice interrupted with a smile, “I insist.”

 

***

 

Beatrice, as she opened the door, realized she could have thought this through more. 

Behind the door stood five adults and one tween, in various states of throwing on coats and shoving on boots, all wearing looks of stricken anxiety. 

Sunny was the first to notice Beatrice and Lemony; instead of saying anything, she smacked Violet’s shoulder before pointing out the door.

“Beatrice!” Violet rushed toward her, but when stopped in her tracks when she saw who stood beside her. “Lemony Snicket. The man with the ridiculous name.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire, Duncan Quagmire-” Lemony probably would have continued until he had named all the possible people who could be in the house if Violet hadn’t interrupted him.

“Yes, we know you know who we are. Beatrice has read your books.” Disapproval bled into her voice.

Lemony looked at Violet and realized that there was a possibility that he should have consulted the Baudelaires before publishing books about them. 

“I hope that you weren’t upset by the books.” 

They had reached a point in the conversation where none of them knew what to say next.

Duncan looked between everyone in the group, taking in their uneasy faces. “Would you like to come in?” he offered to Lemony, in part just to end the stagnation. He had heard of Lemony, of course. Beatrice’s uncle whom the Baudelaires had met briefly at Hotel Denouement. Admittedly, when he had pictured the man in his mind, he hadn’t expected him to be over six feet tall and so grim looking.

“I don’t want to impose, Beatrice insisted that I come with her…” Lemony trailed off, looking like he was halfway to leaving in the next twenty seconds. 

Klaus could read Violet’s body language – he spoke up before she could close the door on Lemony. “No, please, come in. Things have changed since we’ve seen you last. We, uh, we have a lot to talk about.” 

As the Baudelaires and Quagmires turned to walk back into the house, Lemony began to wonder if coming with Beatrice had been a mistake. He had not had any associates in a long time, and he did not know how this was going to go. 

The thought of leaving was just crossing his mind when he felt a hand in his. Beatrice was looking up at him with a smile that made leaving impossible, even if it was the safer option. 

The conversation was not any less awkward when being held in the living room. Sunny stood up from the couch. “Well, making tea won’t make this any  _ less _ awkward.” She left for the kitchen, pausing in the doorway long enough to throw a “and I’m putting sugar in it” at Lemony over her shoulder.

There was a minute of excruciating silence before Beatrice said, “Klaus, you’re taking a class on Lithuanian post modern literature right? Uncle Lemony just read a book about that.” 

Klaus adjusted his glasses, glad for Beatrice’s ice breaker. “Yes, I am, I find it really – wait, Uncle Lemony?”

Beatrice shrugged. “He’s Kit’s brother, isn’t he? And his name is Lemony.” She turned to Violet. “That would have been your name if you were a boy, right?”

Lemony’s eyes widened, but Sunny entered the room at that moment and taken the attention off him; nobody noticed.

Once the tea had been dispensed and Lemony had looked appropriately disgusted by it, Violet looked at him and said, “tell us about VFD, we want to know everything.” 

It was not a request. It was a very forceful demand.

“Where do you want me to begin?” 

“I can think of three places.”

Lemony sighed, gesturing to her, himself, and the Quagmires with a short movement of his hand. “Our families?”

Violet gave a short nod. 

Lemony took a deep breath, and began to explain. He had never been known for being particularly brief, and he spared no detail as he spoke. There were questions he couldn’t answer, gaps in his knowledge despite his years of research, but he told them everything he knew and all of his guesses. 

They drank the entire pot of tea, and then the second pot. The sun set outside the window. Beatrice began to yawn though pretended she wasn’t, right up until she fell asleep against Lemony’s shoulder. 

Lemony hadn’t reached anything resembling a stopping point until after the clock had chimed one.

“And that is all I know,” he finished. The four adults and one child staring back at him looked exhausted, both because of the late hour and the weight of the information they had learned. 

But they no longer looked at him with suspicion. He had given them something that very few adults had ever been willing to; he had given them the truth, even if it was not complete. 

If Beatrice wanted him around, maybe he could stay.  

**Author's Note:**

> remember in our last author's note how we talked about going on a road trip? we didn't get as much writing done as we would have liked (we apologize), and little_alien_duck and our long-suffering friend had to take me (snaredrum) to the hospital around 4:30 am. what follows is a real text conversation we had as i sat in a hospital bed and she stayed in the waiting room:
> 
> snaredrum: i'm in a gurney when is louis hynes gonna push me through a doorway and break the wall  
> little_alien_duck: he can't, he'll break the wall. no property damage here  
> s: okay at what point are y'all gonna disguise yourselves as doctors to try to find me but get found out and then they try to make y'all cut off my head while i'm unconscious  
> l: don't worry i'm getting my dr. faustus beard now  
> s: oh thank god
> 
> \- snaredrum, little_alien_duck


End file.
